JEFF BARKER
BRANDING CASE STUDY
WHERE THE BRAND WAS
When I came on board as Plant Therapy's Creative Director the company was booming. But because of that growth, and without the personnel and systems in place to capitalize on it, the overall strategic direction of the brand was years behind where it needed to be. In the past, creative work had been on an as-needed basis, usually at the last minute, and produced by freelancers. The main e-commerce web site had been designed by the hosting company years prior and packaging and labelling didn't have a cohesive design system. Photography was one dimensional. Fonts where overused and hadn't been on-trend for years. And there was no overall color palette. This had the effect of making the company look inconsistent, outdated and provincial.
WHAT WAS DONE
Working with the Marketing team and other stakeholders, we evaluated our present and future customers and figured out how we wanted to engage them. Taking that information I updated the logo, built an overarching brand strategy, instituted internal workflow processes and built a kick-butt creative team. Then we got to work. Below are the major achievements accomplished while I was the Creative Director.
UPDATED THE COMPANY LOGO
I kept what was positive about the old logo, leveraged what brand equity there was in it and designed an updated and simplified mark that is more modern yet slightly upscale. It also has a more timeless look so that it's not outdated in two years.
BUILT A BRAND STRATEGY GUIDE
We evaluated our customer base and developed business needs around these findings. From that came Customer Personas, a Brand Voice, a Positioning Statement and a Brand Platform. I defined the new logos size, color and spacing guidelines, developed a corporate font and color style guide, outlined photography usage and put together photo styles guides for all social media platforms. Then developed the look for product and lifestyle imagery. After presentation and buy-in, this document was distributed throughout the company for all departments to use.
REDESIGNED THE WEB SITE
Plant Therapy was, at their core, an e-commerce company. I had come from a previous job as a web design manager, so the web site was one of the first things I focused on. The sites design and its overall framework hadn't been updated in a few years. My first step was to work with all of the stakeholders in a discovery process to figure out what we, as a business, wanted the site to accomplish. Once we had a new strategy completed I jumped in and wireframed the main page types that we had identified. These included the home page, marketing landing pages, category pages, product grid pages and product detail pages and checkout process. We then conducted UX/UI and customer testing on these wireframes. From there I put together three different design treatments for these page types and after a few revisions we choose the overall new direction for the site. I then worked with my front-end and back-end developers to produce the site. We went through a few iterations of testing and adjusting the usability and came out the other end with a much more cohesive and on-brand site.
DESIGNED A LABEL & PACKAGING SYSTEM
With over 1000 labels to redo and no cohesive design system to do them under, we developed a comprehensive look and feel that was both modern and appealing while also being flexible and easy to use. The system took into account different label variables such as Organic or KidSafe, various bottle sizes and multiple catagories, all while meeting government guidelines production standards. It incorporated a consistent graphic framework and color coding for each product type as well as font usage size and placement guidelines. This new system elevated the brand to a more modern and cohesive look while also giving it longevity and flexibility.
Within the company there were many different sub brands, each for a different market segment and product type. But these sub-brands didn't have a cohesive way to be integrated into the overall Plant Therapy brand as well having their own look. They each needed a distinct design representation, but also a way to work as family. I produced new logos that worked as stand-alone designs as well as together as a family. We then put together creativeguides, landing pages, photography and marketing assets for each sub-brand.
DESIGNED THE RETAIL STORE
STAFFED AND MANAGED A CREATIVE TEAM
One of my main focuses was to build and manage a Creative Team. I hired staff that consisted of Art Directors, Designers, a Creative Project Manager as well as a Front-End developer. I also built relationships with a stable of Photography and Video studios and other outside vendors as well as developed relationships with internal departments so that Creative could be seen as a service organization to the rest of the company.
My team and I worked with the rest of the company to design the creative workflow as well as the overall process.
When Plant Therapy decided to open a retail location I developed store design concepts, internal and external signage and an overall color palette for the store. Then working with the owners we revised the designs into final illustration renderings. I worked with Marketing on the overall floor layout, shelving, signage placement, main wall art installation and the flow of customers. Then worked with the contractors to build out the overall store to the vision we had developed.
DIRECTED PHOTO SHOOTS
I worked with multiple photo studios on photo direction, styling, shot and prop lists and art direction. We used various locations and models to produce in-studio and location lifestyle, flat-lay and product photography that supported promotions, social media, email, blog posts, retail and the overall brand. See the PHOTOGRAPHY section for more photo samples.
PRODUCED VIDEOS
I had a small in-house video team that produced promotional and DIY videos but I also worked with outside studios to concept and produce multiple videos series that were used throughout Plant Therapy's marketing, blog, social media platforms and YouTube channel.
CREATED SEASONAL MOOD BOARDS
With promotions that took place during different times of the year, we needed overall creative direction and mood boards that pertained to those time periods. I developed a seasonal calendar for the usage of these mood boards as well as worked with my team to produce the look for each period. The designers would then use this mood board as the base for all overall design direction during this period.
DEVELOPED MARKETING CAMPAIGN TEMPLATES
I developed a range of files in various formats that were used as templates throughout all marketing channels. These templates were built to existing size, resolution and format specifics depending on that channel, which included home page promotional areas, landing pages, wireframes, affiliate collateral, email, social media platforms and retail signage.